Madam Satan
About Madam Satan
Angela Brooks wakes to find that her husband Bob did not come home. The paper says Bob and a “Mrs. Brooks” were in night court with his friend Jimmy Wade. The woman is Trixie, a showgirl. Bob says she is Jimmy’s wife. Angela is less angry than tired of a marriage he calls cold. Jimmy gives a masked ball on the moored zeppelin CB-P-55. Angela goes as Madam Satan, in a French accent, and vamps Bob without telling him who she is. A storm breaks the airship up. The guests parachute. She tells him. Kay Johnson plays Angela, Reginald Denny plays Bob, Lillian Roth plays Trixie, and Roland Young plays Jimmy.
Cast & crew
More about Madam Satan
Cecil B. DeMille produced and directed. Jeanie MacPherson wrote the screenplay. Gladys Unger and Elsie Janis wrote dialogue. Harold Rosson photographed it. Anne Bauchens edited. Loew’s released it in the United States on 20 September 1930. It runs 116 minutes, in black and white with Multicolor sequences. The first 50 minutes are the four-way marriage plot. The rest is the zeppelin.
Themes
Making
MGM let DeMille build a masked ball inside a zeppelin and then wreck the ship. The color is limited to sequences. The rest is black and white.
Look
Harold Rosson shot the house, the night-court story, and the ball on CB-P-55, with Multicolor used in sequences rather than through the whole film.
Music
The film is a musical. Clifford Grey is credited among the songwriters. Angela’s Madam Satan turn is played with a French accent and a costume, not with a separate singer.
Preservation
A print is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- The airship in the party sequence is named CB-P-55.
- Theodore Kosloff, Julanne Johnston, Wilfred Lucas, and Mary McAllister are also billed.
- Clifford Grey is among the music credits.
- DeMille was returning to the bedroom comedies that had made his money about ten years earlier.
- A Commons file uses the title Madam Satan (1930).
Scenes
- Angela reads that Bob and a Mrs. Brooks were in night court.
- She boards CB-P-55 as Madam Satan and flirts with her own husband.
- The storm breaks the airship and the guests go down by parachute.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Madam Satan (1930).webm)
